Returning from a family visit to Texas last month, I was called aside for further attention at the Austin-Bergstrom Airport. Perhaps the scanner revealed some anomaly of which I was unaware. Or maybe a mysterious algorithm randomly selects those to be singled out for more intensive scrutiny. Whatever the reason, I was patted down and my hands were tested for explosive residue.

I have no problem with Transportation Safety Agency officers looking at every airline passenger, even a retired schoolteacher, as a possible terrorist. But the experience got me thinking. If I were actually a terrorist, wouldn't I know enough not to arrive at a security checkpoint laden down with guns and bombs? Even if I am not the smartest would-be terrorist in the Hudson Valley, wouldn't I avoid chatting with the kind of FBI informants who entrapped four Newburgh men and an Albany imam? And if the NSA is logging every call I make, would I really use my own phone or laptop for nefarious purposes?

Fortunately, if I need to plan a really horrendous act of terror, there will be a secure communications option for me and my America-hating friends. We can go to any number of stores and check out the selection of prepaid cellphones. We've watched "Law & Order" and "The Wire," so we know that prepaids are standard equipment for any serious criminal enterprise. To be extra safe, we'll buy a batch and throw them away after a single use. That way, even if the CIA picks up our terrorist chatter, they won't be able to pin us down.

The only problem is deciding which phones to buy. The $59 Verizon at Walmart looks good and has the best network. We also like the AT&T GoPhone at Best Buy. The plan that offers 250 minutes of international calling should cover any last minute coordination with our allies dodging drones over in Yemen or Pakistan.

No need to attract attention with multiple purchases. The smart move will be to buy a variety of brands, never too many at one place: a BoostMobile and a TracPhone in Latham, a Verizon 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot over in Rensselaer, a few more T-mobiles and Netphones at Crossgates.

By now I've convinced myself that real terrorists will have no trouble evading the sophisticated surveillance technology recently described by Edward Snowden. But if escaping the notice of the world's best intelligence agencies is so easy, why haven't our elected leaders done something about it?

Well, it turns out that Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. John Cornyn tried to do something right after the 2010 arrest of Faisal Shazad, who tried to bomb Times Square. They proposed the first-ever federal law requiring that buyers' identities be recorded for all prepaid phones and SIM cards. In their press release, Schumer and Cornyn pointed out that drug dealers, financial criminals and the 9-11 hijackers had all used prepaids, and that countries ranging from Germany to Indonesia already required registration for such phones.

No companion bill, however, was introduced in the House, and Senate Bill 3427 went on to die in the Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee without ever coming to a vote. Why that happened I leave to your imagination. A laudable concern for lower income people who rely on prepaid phones? Hostility to government regulation? Pressure from phone company lobbyists? A Congress that has ceased to function in any rational sense?

I really can't say, but it does seem bizarre to spend untold billions waging wars and creating complex surveillance systems, only to leave this enormous gap in our national defense.